an abundance of teenagers

Despite how this may sound, this is really not a rant. Okay let me stand corrected, this is a bit of a rant but not a really bad one. Okay now that we have cleared this up, today I found I could not move in work without bumping into clumps of teenagers and I was starting to find it more than a little bit irritating. I know our shop is big and full of seating plus it has teenage books so it tends to be a bit of hangout for the young and bored at the weekend. 

 I am finding of late that teenagers are infuriating me on a level that they never did before and it's making me feel pretty old. Not to mention the fact that I am frequently finding myself privy to the most idiotic of conversations due to my unfortunate proximity to them when I am doing some work at the computer. That and the the fact that as a 31 one year old I am virtually invisible to the teenage masses so they either don't seem me at all or I am deemed irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I have to say that some of the conversations are actually painful to be witness to but I am certain that these teenagers think that they are displaying sparkling wit and daring originality and I can't see a space in the conversation where I would be welcome to join in and inform them otherwise.

 It's exactly eleven years since I was considered a teenager but it feels like a lifetime ago. Much as I'd like to redo my twenties and have my life in better order by this stage (just like I always thought I would) I don't think I could through all angst and painful self consciousness that was my teenage years and I am not sure at what point the teenage population enmasse became such an irritant for me.

 I wasn't exactly unique as a teenager, I was painfully self conscious and terribly shy which is a large part of the reason I began experimenting with alcohol at the tender age of 14, although I felt terribly mature at the time. I hated how  I looked and I let others push me around and I wrote terrible angsty poetry about the awful time I was having at school.
We had no mobiles back then but we would meet at the same spot every Saturday and go for lunch and try and spend as long as possible having lunch because there was nothing else to do in the one horse town where I grew up. Or we would go to a cafe and get two cokes between four of us and try and make them last as long as possible so were weren't just wandering around aimlessly. I'm pretty sure that we thought we were interesting and witty and the stuff we were talking about was worth hearing even though I'm sure it was not too many degrees from the chatter of teenagers expect maybe with out snap chat and saying rofl and the like.

 I know I'm heading for trouble when I start hoping they will be hunted out of the shop for loitering and I'm there huffing in annoyance because I am trying to get through one such crowd and they are so oblivious to my presence that no ones moving. 

 I am not really this cantankerous, thirty one going on eighty year old but I sure feel like it today

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